European Gloom

Theodore Dalrymple remarks in City Journal on the growing sense of economic gloom in Western Europe and how the Eurocrats and the left-liberals fear that this will lead to an increase in populism, and even in—gasp—nationalism, the dreaded enemy of all that is glorious and pro-EU.

In other words, if only governments of countries in which populism—that is to say, the popularity of one’s opponents—spent enough money to revive their respective economies, the people would return to their senses and reenter the social-democratic fold that has served Europe so well in the recent past—even if, in fact, it led to the present trouble.